Spider alley soul search’n!

Last time I posted I jumped to the conclusion that my trip was full of little moments that inspired incredible joy within me. This weekend was an overwhelming block of those moments; so much so that it is safe to say this adventure has consumed me. This weekend I started off with the mission of familiarizing myself with my surroundings. Sumiyoshi is the young, hip, and affordable place to go in Nagasaki City. It is overflowing with internet cafes, 100 yen stores, clothing, toys, street vendors (with some of the strangest sweets I’ve ever seen), dried fish and kelp shops, and fresh locally grown fruits and veggie stands. Walking down the streets of Sumiyoshi is a full frontal assault of the pleasure sensors. You walk through a cloud of steam billowing from a basket, and smell the sweet sourish smell of steamed sticky. At the same time you can see the flashing red and yellow sign of the internet café in front of you blinking in time with the shouting of the fruit vendor ten doors up. There was even a puppy store (yes, even the dogs are small here)! Sumiyoshi is about a 15-minute walk from my home stay, and is also where my host brothers and I catch the bus to school.

After exploring the main streets of Sumiyoshi, John-O (a British friend), Daney, and myself decided to explore the back streets of town, and started climbing. After walking past many beautiful little homes and countless views of sardine can housing our journey ended in someone’s back yard. Thus we turned around only to find that the downhill trip would be a little more difficult. There are huge golden yellow, black, and red spiders from hell EVERYWHERE in the back alleys of Nagasaki. Though they don’t seem aggressive or very mobile they spin massive webs. These death snares are spun between the telephone poles of the alleys at just about the six-foot mark. Thus the Japanese seem to have very little reason to fear these arachnidian demons. I would compare our trip down the hill as nerve wracking at best. We hunched over and sped through the trenches under meticulously spun webs that I would have appreciated were it not for their tenants. This was however only a short encounter, and that hill is now known as spider alley. No one goes there. . . EVER!

Today started with a cooling downpour during a breakfast of Texas toast with grape jelly and a fried egg (not very Japanese I know). Then with umbrellas in hand my host brothers and I walked to the Sumiyoshi trolley station, where we met with two new found Japanese friends (Tomo and Asako) and four of our fellow Jasin students. After paying the 100-yen (one dollar) ticket we rode for about half an hour down to Nagasaki harbor. There we decided to go to the small volcanic island of Iojima (not the famous Iwo Jima). Unfortunately we missed the first ferry, but this led to an hour and a half romp/ photo session in the Nagasaki Bay Park and harbor. This park looked out over the Mitsubishi boat yard (the target of the Nagasaki bombing in 1945). Japan does not have an army. They have a “Defense Force” which was in full show at the harbor in the form of four huge battle ships at dock.
Anyway, many many pictures later we boarded the trolley for a wonderful fifteen-minute boat ride to the island. The island was a complete and total joy. Unlike Nagasaki city there were very few people there. We found a beautiful clean beach, rolled the pants legs up, and waded out into the joyously cool water. Some of the more rambunctious guys stripped down to their boxers and went for a swim to escape the still and sticky air. Then after about two hours we headed to the island hot springs. This was to be my first Japanese bath experience, and I had my doubts; hot humid climate meets even hotter natural hot springs? Doesn’t make much sense. . . right? WRONG! It was incredible. The heated salty with a hint of sulfur water was relaxing beyond belief, and actually made the sticky air seem cold. We stayed in the stylish spa for quite a while, and just as the sun started to set we got some cold refreshments and sat in the harbor talking about friends with bad tattoos, exotic meals, and hopes for next weekend. Finally we pulled away from the island of Iojima as the setting sun disappeared behind its mountain and surrounded it with an orange yellow halo. Incredible spas and beaches. . . I must be spending a fortune right?
WRONG AGAIN.
Turns out when you buy your ten-dollar ticket to Iojima you get a free day pass to the hot springs, so everything I did today cost a total of about sixteen dollars.

When you smile or laugh, the world’s problems seem to peel away from you in layers. You give more of yourself to those around you, and smiles come easier than before. It is indeed a different world here, but I’m quickly seeing those around me smile more as we peel more and more layers away. Classes start tomorrow and with them the long awaited arrival of all the Japanese students. Tomo and Asako are wonderfully light hearted and have smiles that take away all the harshness of city life. I’ve posted all of my pictures from this weekend on my Flickr site so to see the full set go to this web page. (sorry havn't figured out how to put them up on this site yet. . . .)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9898906@N04/


Until next time.

Blur. . .

My days seem to run all together, swirling into a torrent of spinning images and flashing lights. I think I’ve been in Japan four full days now, but the days go by so quickly I’m unsure. The bus from Fukuoka was a breathtaking two-hour drive. The Japanese countryside is a lush mix of greens and yellows complimented by cloud formations that mimic freeze frame avalanches rolling down invisible blue grey mountains. Large Japanese farmhouses dot the countryside and flat valleys. Their fields full of rice ready to be harvested run right up on the homes stonewall fence. No space is wasted here. As the bus came closer and closer to Nagasaki the hills turned into sharper topped mountains of bamboo and evergreen forests interrupted by terraced hillside crops of mikkan (a Japanese tangerine). The first view of Nagasaki and its bayside harbor was like being back in Hawaii. My school also happens to be on one of the tallest hills in my area. So every classroom has a view to die for of the bay surrounded by sharp green hills.

Now begins the times of blurred memory. Orientation starts each day at the college with a 15-minute hike up the hill in the brilliant morning sun (our bus only goes to the bottom of the hill). However! The constant view and breeze make the heat and slight workout worth it. The entire campus is only three building, one of which is a clubhouse. Ever day when orientation lets out at five my two home stay “brothers” and I have an hour and a half walk home. This walk takes us through what I imagined big city Japan to look like. Huge neon happy suns on white billboards slurping up Raman stands above fresh fruit and vegetable markets, toy stores, and cell phone companies line the safety of the sidewalk. The streets are a chaotic mess of small people on motor scooters and in compact cars zooming about with no obvious rhyme or reason. Mixed into all of this are the perfectly kept personal gardens of Nagasaki’s residences. Each tree, shrub, and flower is trimmed and placed meticulously to be part of a greater picture that is elegant and simple.

My host family, the Sakimora family, speaks virtually no English. This tends to make communication very difficult when I speak virtually no Japanese. Thankfully, I have two host brothers, Daney and Chris, who speak enough Japanese to get us through. Even so, meals, which are the only time we really see our host parents, are a two hour joyous combination of laughter, great food, big smiles, broken Japanese, and colorful hand motions. I’d say we communicate mostly in a charades like game of chance. We’ve had tempura, sashimi, grilled fish, chicken and corn dumplings, and Champon [Nagasaki’s signature noodle dish. Created by the Chinese originally and adapted by the Japanese because Nagasaki was for many years the only open port of Japan.] All of which were delicious and leave me feeling clean and refreshed after dinner. While dinner has been perhaps the most stimulating part of my days thus far it leaves me exhausted, and with a lightheaded feeling like I imagine having my brain strapped into one of those electronic muscle stimulators would feel. Thus I retreat with my roommate Daney to our next door four room apartment. There we sit on tatami mat beds and talk about our goals for our time abroad and families back home. Then a quick cold shower to beat the night heat and I crash into my bed and sleep coverless through the warm Nagasaki nights.

This trip has been full of little moments that seem to inspire great levels of joy within me. The most noticeable thus far was today on our walk home. Close to the end of our walk a small Japanese boy started walking nervously beside us. He laughed at our size first, and then stayed about ten paces back. I unintentionally started to whistle a Radiohead song. The boy began to whistle along with me. I stopped, laughed, and then listened to what he was whistling. Then I started responding to his whistles by adding one note to his song. This continued and built into quite the complex line of whistles that lasted for around twenty minutes. Then at a fork in the road he started down the opposite side of the street. He turned and shouted, “SEE YA!” And, with a small wave he was gone and the moment was over. It just seemed to brighten up my day, and helped to take my mind off the heat.

This is truly a different world and I can’t wait to explore it more this weekend, and start taking pictures. I just bought batteries for my camera so I’ll post pictures soon.

And he's off

OHIO!
Ok, so a quick update while I have the benefit of a speedy internet connection. Kampi (Cheers) ! After almost a full 22 hours of traveling I made it to Japan. I got into Tokyo around lunch and finally made it to Fukuoka around 8:30 - 9:00ish. The longest flight, Chicago to Tokyo, felt surprisingly short. I comfortably lasted the 12 or 13 hour flight with my own personal TV monitor in front of me and a very friendly older Japanese woman beside me. Communication was attempted several times but was not especially successful. I believe the only English word she knew was sorry. Anyway, I’m off to catch a bus to Nagasaki, and meet my host family. More when stuff settles a little.

A Short History

For those of you who don’t already know about my up and coming journey, my name is Andrew and I am going to spend three months studying in Nagasaki, Japan. This trip started in earnest over a year ago when I began my search for the perfect travel abroad agency to take me to Japan. I found one that took me to Nagasaki shortly after Christmas.
The reasons behind Japan are largely personal, and have little base in academics. I have always felt a strong pull towards the foods and cooking styles of the Far East as well as the austere artistic style that I always thought was Japanese. Simple clean lines used to accent and enhance the incredible beauty of nature. Ever since I was a kid I also had the secret desire to be a Samurai. I’d chop wildly at pokeweed plants with a hand crafted plywood katana my father made me. I’ve since given up on such wild dreams, and moved on to more tangible goals. I want to experience literally everything I can physically stand in Nagasaki. I wanted to eat fresh tuna sashimi, buy beer out of a vending machine, climb Fuji San, visit a peace park, walk with bare feet through a bamboo forest and listen to the wind rattle through it, be pushed onto the bullet train by small men wearing even smaller white gloves. Needless to say that is only a fraction of my goals and desires.
While I have my own agenda I am actually going to study in Japan. I am enrolled through the University of Wisconsin in The Nagasaki School For International Foriegn Language Study, or the JASIN program for short. While I have not signed up for classes yet (we do that upon arrival) I hope to take classes largely in traditional and modern Japanese Literature and Art. I will be living with a host family and two other American boys who I know nothing about. . . whatever.
I leave in 9 days now and I must say the pressure is mounting. True to form, I have not even thought about packing yet, but intend to begin tomorrow. I hope all of those who read this account of my travels find it interesting and enjoyable.